​Further exploring the Vorel's laboratory, where the Skinsaw Man met his end, the party discovered a mysterious fungus, with the shattered remains of what seemed to be Vorel's phylactery within it. Attempts to restore it with cantrips failed.

Within the fungus was the shape of a man. After some experimentation, the party ewre able to burn the fungus away with lamp oil and flame.

On their way out, exploring side caverns they'd passed while following Iesha's walking corpse to the Skinsaw Man, the party discovered a group of goblin ghasts and, in another chamber, more ghouls.​

​The party travels back to Sandpoint, getting to the Rusty Dragon late in the evening. After breakfast the following morning they tell Sheriff Belor Hemlock of their discoveries at the Hambly Farm and Foxglove Manor, identifying the ghastly (literally) Aldern Foxglove as the murderer of Katrine Vender, Banny Hasker and the Hambly family. After that, they travel to various shops to sell their loot.

The following day, Kuthona 7, Reolan pays another 1,000 gp towards the dragonhide armour at the Rovanky Tannery, leaving 4,000 gp still to pay. Aurora, realising she, Papoy and Tiberiu have contracted diseases from their battles with the ghouls and from the fungal rot in Foxglove Manor, calls on Saranrae to cure them.

Reolan, Atum and Papoy visit the Old Light, where they attract the attention of the old sage Brodert Quink, who tells them a little of the history of Thassilon, what he's managed to discover of Thassilonian magic, and his theory that the Old Light was once a Thassilonion weapon. Since he appears to know quite a bit about the ancient civilisation, they tell him of their discoveries in the Cathedral of Wrath. He becomes interested when they tell him how the quasit summoned a sinspawn from a glowing pool, and identifies the pool as a Runewell. He says it must have been re-activated, probably within living memory, though only another Runewell is supposed to be able to achieve that. He believes it will still be active.

They ask Quink to come with them to see the underground cathedral for himself and help them de-activate the runewell. He reluctantly agrees when they promise him they have already dealt with the dangers, and will gather the rest of the party to ensure his safety.

In the catacombs, Quink confirms the group's identification of the statue as Alaznist, Runelord of Wrath, who he says ruled the Thassilonian province of Bakrakhan, which now lies mostly underwater in the Varisian Gulf. Sandpoint lies close to what where once the borders of Bakrakhan and the province of Shalast, ruled by her rival Karzoug, Runelord of Greed.

He identifies the glowing pool in the Cathedral of Wrath as a minor runewell, and says it can be drained by summoning more sinspawn. He asks how the quasit summoned one when the party first came to the cathedral, and when he hears she cut herself and dropped blood into it he suggests the party do the same. He retreats from the ruunewell while the party do so. A sinspawn appears and is rapidly dispatched. The runewell seems to glow less. After repeating the ritual several times, and defeating several more sinspawn, its glow fades to nothing. Quink believes that has deactivated the runewell.

The party continue to show Quink around the catacombs, and when Reolan sees the blocked stairs, he decides he now has the power to get through. Turning himself into an earth elemental, he flows through the rock, tracing the route of the stairs deeper down, though avoiding directly following it.

He emerges into a large chamber containing a huge demon. He freezes, and the hesitation costs him his life, for the demon's power overwhelms his good sense, then its claws rip him apart.

In the catacombs the party wait for Reolan to return. After some time, increasingly concerned, Papoy tries to discover if Reolan's pet frog Frosch can sense its master. All it can tell him is that Reolan is gone, and will not come back.

Realising they have no hope of restoring Reolan to life without his body, the party set about recovering it. Papoy heads to scrolls to turn rock to soft earth from his friend Chask Haladan at the Curious Goblin bookshop, while Aurora seeks aid from the Varisian elder Madame Mvashti. Tessera heads to the general store to buy picks, shovels and other mining gear, and the others recruit labourers from the docks. With the aid of the magic and concerted overnight digging, the party finally break through the blockage on the morning of Kuthona 8, and find a small door opening into a chamber deep below Sandpoint. There they see Reolan's remains in an antechamber, and in a chamber beyond, a terrible demon, some 18 feet (5m) tall. It squeezes through a pillared corridor towards the antechamber as Aurora and Atum dash in to grab Reolan's body. Tessera rushes in to block it, but it tears her apart in seconds.

As the party flee through the door and back up the stairs, Papoy pauses and casts a spell to draw Tessera's severed hand to him. With that, she too can be brought back to life.​

​Madam Mvishta follows the rituals laid out the the scrolls of reincarnation. Reolan finds himself in a new Chelaxian body; Tessera in a dwarven one.​

​Reolan thanks Madam Mvashti in Druidic. She offers counselling services to Tessera, who decides she wants to get drunk. The group head to the Rusty Dragon where they tell Ameiko what's happened. She wants them to tell Mayor Kendra about the monster beneath Sandpoint - though the party avoid saying it's a demon and swear it's contained.

She notices how clumsy Tessera looks and suggests she visit Sabyl Sorn at the House of Blue Stones to help get used to her new body. She talks Sabyl into helping. Tessera stays with the monk while the rest of the party head to the town hall.

They meet Mayor Kendra with Ameiko and Sheriff Hemlock. Here they are honest about what is under Sandpoint. Tiberiu believes the demon is a Glabrezu, a demon that stands 18 feet tall and weighs just over 6,000 pounds. These treacherous demons form from the souls of the treasonous, the false, and the subversive—souls of mortals who, in life, bore false witness or used treachery and deceit to ruin the lives of others.

Kendra is horrified at what is underneath Sandpoint. Hemlock believes the stairs should be capped with cement and all access ways into the Cathedral of Wrath bricked up. Though Papoy suggests a route be left Hemlock manages to convince Major Kendra to follow his plan.

Reolan convinces Mayor Kendra to send for four scrolls of restoration. Party chime of opening, wand of tree shape, scroll of keen edge and get party funds topped up to 4000 gp - enough to fun the restore scrolls - by Belegar on condition the next protective item goes to him.

Party funds are depleted, with Papoy putting in 1700 gp and Belegar 826 gp from their personal hoards.

Performances of Papoy's musical "Heroes of Sandpoint" take place at Sandpoint Theatre on weekends of 15, 23. Papoy excels in his performance. Theatre manager Dokkus pays 1000 gp and 5% share of gate amoungs to 450 gp. The party agrees the take should go to Papoy to help offset what he's owed (so he's now owed 250 gp).

During these three weeks, Tessera trains with Sabyl Sorn, retraining Dazzling Display as Furious Focus, and with the Sandpoint Garrison, learning to use the greatsword instead of the elven curve blade. She asks Papoy and Belegar to teach her Dwarven, but they only teach her swear words, pretending they're polite Dwarvish.

The party tracks down a faceless stalker, hiding under the jetties near the Sandpoint Fish Market. After clearing Tessera's name, and restoring themsleves in the eyes of Sandpoint, they book passage aboard a ship bound for Magnimar, arriving on the morning of Kuthona 26.

The party heads to the Kaijitsu townhouse to use as a base, then get directions to the Foxglove townhouse, which they find boarded up.

Reolan turns into a pigeon to keep warch after the party are moved away by the watch for loitering outside the Foxglove house.

They retun at night, fight and kill the faceless stalkers posing as Aldern and Iesha, and uncover the secret hoard of papers containing the deed to Foxglove Manor, referring to the Seven's sawmill, and 200 pp (ie, 2000 gp - 250 gp tp Papoy and 826 gp to Belegar, leaving leaving 426 gp to party funds and 60.85 gp per person).

Investigating the Seven's Sawmill, TIberiu provokes and attack form the mill workers in the undermill when he disguises himself as Aldern Foxglove.

Tessera is caught in the machinery as she attacks, and dumped in the water as she kills one of the cultists (who's also dragged into the machinery). Afrter the cultists are defeated, Reolan changes from dog to human and swims to rescue her.

The party collect two skinsaw masks, two masterwork better war razors (sale value 154 gp each) and three sets of skinsaw robes. Tiberiu recognises them as being members of the SKinsaw Cult, who worship Norgorber.

In the lumber room the party defeat 4 more cultsts, collecting four more masks and four more masterwork better war razors.

After a battle with four more cultists among the logsplitters (four more masks, four more masterwork better war razors), the party find a barrel at the southern end of a robe closet containing a fair amount of loot harvested from their victims; the cultists maintain a community pool of stolen goods and coins for use as the need arises. The barrel currently contains three bags of 100 gp; three potions of barkskin +3; a beautiful crystal decanter set with an obsidian stopper, worth 300 gp; and a tiny wooden box containing three poorly cut diamonds, worth 200 gp each. (Total 1200 gp, plus potions) .

On the top level they battle Justice Ironbriar and his last remaining cultists. From the elf they acquire a +2 elven curve blade and a +1 mithral chain shirt. They also find a reaper's mask and a wand of cure moderate wounds. In a footlocker in Ironbriar's office they find several books (a spell book, the Syrpent's Tane, worth 500 gp, and a journal written in a mix of Elven, Draconic and Abyssal characters, a a fine painting depicting a city carved from a vast frozen waterfall with towering ice cathedrals and domes (this painting is worth 200 gp).

Aurora heals Ironbriar to consciousness (after tying him up). Tiberiu realises Ironbriar is under an enchantment. Papoy is able to dispel it, after which he reveals he was enchanted by the lamia Xanesha, the instigator of all the murders. In return for a 12-hour head start, he agrees to reveal more information about Xanesha. Through him, he says, the corrupted the benevolent Brotherhood of the Seven into a murderous cult. He reveals that her lair is in the Shadow Clock, one of the tallest towers in the slum under the Irespan Bridge.

​From the Rookery in the Seven's Sawmill the party head to the Shadow Clock. Atum pays his 61 gp share to Belegar from the 160 gp he owes him.

In a moldy sack in the base of the Shadow Clock, Atum finds a moldy leather sack hidden in a mound of debris in the southwest corner contains 125 gp, 309 sp, a tarnished silver ring worth 75 gp, and a silver mirror worth 50 gp.

While they are searching, a flesh golem attacks. After defeating it, Belegar takes the Cloak of Elvenkind it was wearing.

The stairs looking shaky, Aurora summons a bird, which Atum makes very strong. They party send it up with a rope and grappling hook to affix to the crossbeams holding the bells in the tower. Moments after it succeeds there is a squawk and a handful of feathers float down.

After several attempts (and several falls), and despite a collapsing bell, the party manage to ascend to the bell tower, where they are attacked by several faceless stalkers. Rickety, jury-rigged stairs are fixed to the outside of the buiding, leading first to a small rookery, then to the ruined roofspace beneath the angel statue. There they are attacked by Xanesha, a lamia (snake-woman) who summons a demon that circles the tower as they battle. Fortunately, after they injure Xanesha badly and she flees by diving off the side of the tower, the demon disappears - it was but an illusion.

Belegar dashes to the edge of the tower and looses an arrow that strikes the fleeing lamia in the back, slaying her.

Within 7 chests in the lamia's nest the party find the lamia's loot: 100 bags of coins worth a total of 3,400 gp, jewellery worth 4,200 gp,four potions of cure moderate wounds, a +2 Small kukri, a ring of jumping, and a golembane scarab. They also find a letter to Xanesha.

From Xanesha's corpse the party recover a medusa mask; the Impaler of Thorns (a +1 longspear capable of casting a despair burst once a day), sihedron medallion, snakeskin tunic​

​Over three days the party sell a number of magical items and distribute their loot, leaving each character with 5715 gp and putting 5715 gp and 9 sp in the party funds.

Tessera spends 7 days retraining her feat to Vital Strike.

Papoy spends 18 days attempting to decoding Ironbriar's journal, but fails. Tessera and Tiberiu spend another 7 days helping him, and they finally crack the code.

In the weeks they spend decyphering the journal the Kaijitsu town house is visited by Inspector Drulia Voralius of the Magnimar City Guard, a middle aged woman of Chelaxian descent, asking after the disappearance of Justice Ironbriar. The party tell her what happened, how he murdered people as head of the Skinsaw Cult.

Reolan shows her the letter from Xanesha, indicating the plot against Lord-Mayor Haldmeer Grobaras. After Papoy has finished decyphering the journal, the party contact her again and show her the new evidence of the plot.

Grobaras gives the party 42,000 gp as a reward for uncovering the plot against him, and another 5,250 gp for the party to find out why Fort Rannick has gone quiet. The party puts another 7,000 gp into party funds (total now 13,325 gp 9 sp), and each keeps 5,750 gp (total 11465 gp each), which they mostly convert to gems. Following that, they use 6,700 gp party of party funds on two scrolls of reincarnation and 4,000 gp of diamond dust - enough for four Restoration spells capable of restoring permanent negative levels.

The party takes passage on board the barge River Queen, captained by Valeria Kirrik. Three days up the river, past the mushfens, on the journey past Sanos the party see a pair of pegasi, but while they are distracted when a faerie dragon tries to pinch Aurora's wand of cure light wounds before landing invisibly on her shoulder. Papoy offer it food and asks its name, which is Puffarol. Aurora forms an immediate bond with the tiny dragon.

By the end of the day the party reaches Whistledown, Papoy's birthplace.​

​As the River Queen pulls pulls into the docks at Whistledown, the party spies to figures waiting at the moorings. One is the elven ranger Shalelu Andosana, who fought alongside them at Thistletop. The other is a halfling in strangely designed armor, mounted upon an unusual dog. Tiberiu immediately recognises Ikari, a samurai who was a good friend when he roamed Tien. Ikari explains he had run out of challenges at home, and came to Avistan to seek out new ones. Having tracked Tiberiu and his father to Sandpoint, only to find Tiberiu gone, he travelled to Turtleback Ferry with Shalelu once they heard Lord-Mayor Groboras had asked the party to go there.Shalelu is at first concerned that the group seems to be missing Reolan and Tessera, and is surprised to discover the pale tattooed human is in fact the druid, and the dwarven woman was once her fellow elf. To Belegar's chagrin, she commiserates Tessera on her misfortune. "Nothing wrong with being a dwarf," Belegar insists.

Shalelu explains she is looking for a member of the Black Arrows, but will not say who or why, just saying, "It's complicated."

After a night in Whistledown, the party board the River Queen again at dawn. It takes another two days to reach Turtleback Ferry. which although small is the main town of the Hook Mountain region, arriving an hour after sunrise.

Ikari notices one of the longshoremen unloading the barge furtively pulling his sleeve over a small tattoo of a seven-pointed star. He asked the others if it has any significance, and identifies it as the same star on Aurora's sihedron medallion. The group explain they have encountered the symbol several times, and it has something to do with the Runelords, once the rulers of the ancient empire of Thassilon.

The people of Turtleback Ferry seem sullen and skittish, jumping at odd noises. Other longshoremen explain the woods and wildlands around the town have become more dangerous since the Black Arrow rangers at Fort Rannick went quiet. Livestock, even people, have disappeared. Some blame the Kreeg ogre clan of Hook Mountain, others the ogrekin Graul family, who live somewhere in the Kreegwood on the far side of the Skull River. While the woods have always been dangerous, more hunters have disappeared, and even travellers along the road once kept safe by the Black Arrows have vanished.

And the early winter rains have dampened spirits - one townsmen tells the group the last time it rained so much, some 40 years ago, the area got flooded.

Then there was the sinking of the Paradise pleasure barge six weeks ago, which went down in Claybottom Lake with the loss of 24 townsfolk and the barge's owner, a high-falutin' woman named Lucrecia.

At the Turtle's Rest, Papoy, Tiberiu and Reolan chat to the a sullen innkeep, Cesten Orlandi, and learn his business has suffered lately. To Papoy's sympathetic ear he explains he relied on off-duty Black Arrows to boost his takings, and with the drop-off in travellers, he's finding times hard. They do not quibble at his outrageous asking price of 5 gp per room, since the other option is to face the danger (and the rain) outside town. When they ask about the Paradise, he launches into a tirade against "that strumpet Lucrecia" - her style of walking, with her chest pushed out and her leg flashing beneath her fancy dress might be all right in Korvosa, he says, but Turtleback Ferry is a respectable town. And while he wouldn't wish ill on anyone, he says, he reckons it's good riddance to the sinful Paradise and he hopes Lucrecia's at the bottom of the lake with it.

Several party members visit the town mayor Maelin Shreed at the Church of Erastil - he's also the town priest. He knows nothing of the sihedron, nor of Thassilonian ruins closer than the Storval Stairs, but he is worried by the lack of communication from the Black Arrows. It was he who sent to Magnimar for aid, and he offers the party his support with healing, both physical and spiritual, while they investigate. He seeks no payment, though he does say donations to the church would be appreciated.

Papoy's attempts to interrogate the tattooed longshoreman get nowhere until Tiberiu surreptitiously enchants the man. He explains the tattoo is a mark of private membership of the Paradise gambling and drinking club. He paid 10 gp for it, and it allowed him in without paying the door fee. He knows he isn't the only one with the tattoo, but he's not sure how many people have it - she told him to keep it secret and he assumes others were told the same. Other than kicking himself for a waste of money - he got the tattoo just a week before Paradise sank - he's mostly worried his wife would find out about his gambling.

With the aid of Reolan's water-breathing magic, the party investigates the wreck of the Paradise, but disturb a huge albino gar lurking within the wreck. Fighting underwater presents some difficulty - except for Reolan, who turns himself into a giant octopus and quickly kills the 4-ton fish. Further investigations in the wreck reveal 24 bodies, eaten to skeletons by fish, none of them wearing fancy clothes such as Lucrecia favoured. Nor were there any valuables left on board. The safe in what they assume was Lucrecia's cabin was open and empty. More significantly the holes in the vessel's hull burst outward - it looks as if the barge was deliberately scuttled from inside.

The group are hailed as fishing heroes when they return to shore with the giant fish, which locals refer to as 'Pinkeye' - something of a local legend, it seems. They sell it for 1,600 gp, which go into party funds. Ikari is keen to make sushi from it.

When the excitement dies down, the party return to the wreck to recover the bodies, which they return to shore.

The following morning the party sets out for Fort Rannick, following the road. Shortly after crossing the bridge over the Skull River, Reloan hears a yowl of a big cat in pain deeper in the woods. Shortly after everyone hears angry dogs barking, and someone humming tunelessly about "huntin' kitty-cats". Following a forest path brings them to a clearing where a firepelt cougar is caught in a bear trrap. They release and heal the cat, then set an ambush for the approaching hunter.

The hunter - a grossly misshapen ogrekin - realises something is amiss and hesitates at the edge of the clearing, but those closest to him break cover and engage while others take on his dogs. The fight is short and bloody, and when the party search the ogrekin's body they find he has a belt of giant strength +2 (which goes to Ikari) and a +1 spear. He also has a blanket with five patches sewn on it. The emblem on the patches is two crossed black arrows.

Kibb leads the group down the trail from which the ogrekin came, which leads to a large clearing containing trampled, modly crops, a delapidated farm house and equally shabby barn, their windows boarded up. This, they realise, is the Graul Farm, home to the murderous family of half-ogres they heard about in Turtleback Ferry.

As they examine the buildings from the edge of the clearing, another ogrekin bursts from the bushes and slashes Belegar with a vicious hooked spear as it howls and yells. It tries to flee after getting badly hurt in a brief battle, but is unable to escape the party's blades.

Searching its body yields a ring of protection +1 (which goes to Belegar), an amulet of natural armor +1 (to Tessera) and a +1 ogre hook.

They party decides to investigate the barn first. Just behind its main doors, they find three ogrekin in an area used as kennels. Two of them charge in to engage the party at the barn doors, but Belegar slides between one's legs to get behind them and shoot a third ogrekin, whose reflexes are slower. Tiberiu follows that up by putting the ogrekin into a deep slumber, and Belegar soon finishes him off. Realising there is a log-jam at the door, Ikari calls on his team-mates to move back. As they do so, Reolan calls down a pillar of fire that burns the two ogrekin at the doors and sets the wooden barn on fire. Aurora and Puffarol extinguish the flames after the burnt ogres are cut down.

The doorway deeper into the barn is boarded up, so as the party mills around the main entrance, Belegar climbs the stairs around the edge of the barn, whcih leads to a catwalk overlooking a makeshift prison containing two cages and a huge spider - an ogre spider, Reolan and Papoy realise once they see it. After killing the ogre spider and the party finds three unconscious, manacled and near-naked men in one of the cages. After healing, one sits up - Shalelu and Jakardros recognise each other straight away.

​The party takes the surviving Black Arrows - Jakardros Sovark, Vale Temros and Kaven Windstrike - outside while they explore the farmhouse, leaving Ikari's dog Hikaru and Shalelu to guard them. Shalelu and Jakardros spent much of the time talking - Hikaru eavesdropped on their conversation, reporting back to Ikari later.

From their conversation, it seems that before he became a Black Arrow Jakardros had spent several years in the Meiriani Forest, where he formed a relationship with Shalelu's mother. But when Shalelu's mother was killed in a dragon attack, he left without a word. Shalelu, who had come to regard him as a father figure, was devastated by the loss of both her parents. Jakardros said he regretted leaving so suddenly, but he had lost his friends in a previous attack by the same dragon and couldn't bear the loss again. The two seem to come to an uneasy truce.

Jakardros says he was leading a patrol of the Kreegwood on the night of the attack. Vale and Kaven were part of it. Their 12-man patrol was delayed, and they returned to find Fort Rannick already taken by ogres from the Hook Mountain. He attempted to attack the castle, but lost half his unit in the attempt. He and the other survivors were ambushed and captured by the Grauls on their way to Turtleback Ferry. He thinks the Black Arrows commander, Lamatar Rayden, may have been away on the night of the attack - he was due to leave on one of his monthly "communion walks" while the patrol was away.

Inside the farmhouse the party discovers plenty of evidence of the Grauls' depravity, including murder, cannibalism, incest and necrophilia. The house is a grisly, nauseating place. They encounter the Graul matriach, the grossly obese necromancer Mammy and her zombie sons, forcing her to flee using some form of teleportation magic after an intense battle - but it seems she didn't go far, taking refuge in the barn. Shalelu and Hikaru finished her off as she attempted to flee.

The attic contains most of the Graul boys' beds, and a workroom containing five flasks of acid.

In the basement of the Graul Farm, the party encounters another ogrekin, and a huge carnivorous plant gu​arding the Grauls' treasure, which includes the Black Arrows' equipment.​

​It is evening. Reolan (as an air elemental) and Pufferol scout Fort Rannick after dicussing options with the three Black Arrows, Shalelu and studying the map Vale makes.

Reolan and Pufferol discover one guard on duty at the east gate, which has been blocked by rubble, notice several ogres heading from the new barracks to the kitchen area, and note that the south gate appears unguarded but in good repair. The entrance to the stairs from the eagles eyrie is blocked with rubble.

The party decide on a double-pronged approach to take the fort. While Reolan flies to a tower of the main keep, blocks the doors of the new barracks and sets it alight, the rest of the party will enter the caves behind the waterfall and use bitterbark smoke to forced the shocker lizards from the lower caves into the bailey yard. After, they hope, killin gor distracting the ogres in the bailey, they will then attempt to enter the keep through the main gates.

Tiberiu and Jakardros both express concern that the keep would be difficult to infiltrate without the Black Arrows' knowledge of the secret ways in, and worry that someone may have betrayed the Black Arrows to the Kreeg ogres.

The party rests overnight. The following day they gather sufficient bitterbark to smoke out the shocker lizard caves. They rest another night to avoid attacking the fort in darkness (the ogres have darkvision, the rangers do not).

The first part of the plan goes well. The group discover the bitterbark unnecessary as Papoy is able to convince the shocker lizards there is tasty food in the bailey. The ogres in the barracks burn to death while the cook and gate guard are distracted by the lizards.

However, the group realise there is a hidden way into the basement of the keep through the lower caves, and Reolan rejoins them.

In the basement they discover Lucrecia. She welcomes them, and thanks Kaven Windstrike for his help in taking the keep. Kaven - close to the back of the group, with only Papoy behind him, flees. Papoy and Tiberiu give chase, after Tiberiu casts haste upon himself, Papoy and several other members of the party.

Those who can reach attack Lucrecia, who quickly assumes her true form as a large, snake-bodied woman - like Xanesha, she is a lamia matriach. She attacks with a pair of daggers, but the group's front line injure her badly enough that she attempts to flee up stairs into the main keep.

The party manage to kill her before she reaches the upper level of the keep - but not before she calls out an alert that brings eight ogres, two of them enormous brutes, from various rooms of the lower level. By this time, Papoy and Tiberiu have rejoined the group, having caught Kaven and tied him up.

The ensuing battle is epic, but the party operate well as a team, Reolan and Tiberiu slowing and confusing ogres with spells while Belegar, Jakardros and Shalelu pepper them with arrows and Tessera, Ikari and Vale Temros wade in with melee weapons. Nevertheless, the ogres prove tough opponents, and without Aurora's constant healing and Papoy's uplifting songs, some of the party would surely have died.​

​In the upper level of Fort Rannick's keep the party realised there were three groups of ogres in separate rooms. Wantitng to avoid being hit in the flanks, they decided to attack all three groups at once. Tessera, Ikari and Hikaru burst into the commander's quarters, where they discovered an ogress sorcerer guarded by a huge ogre with metal plates for jaws. Belegar opened what Jakardros called the 'tribunal', where two ogres were bleeding the bodies of three Black Arrows into buckets. In the chapel, a large ogre guarded an enormous ogre who Karadros identified as Jargrath Kreeg, one of the leaders of the Kreeg clan of Hook Mountain, arranging mutilated bodies on the altar, above which a crude image of ta three-eyes jackal head had been daubed in blood.

The battle was long, and mighty. The ogre guarding the sorcerer did not last long, but long enough for the sorceress to unleash a spell that left much of the party dull and confused - fortunately, Papoy was able to suppress its effects after a few moments, though not before Kibb, Tiberiu and Tessara began attacking each other. Ikari was able to dispatch the sorceress before she did any more harm. Belegar relied on his arrows to slay the ogres in the tribunal, though Ikari managed to finish one off after leaving the commander's quarters, prompting the taciturn dwarf to mutter, "Kill stealer!"

Reolan transformed into a giant tiger and entered the chapel to take on the leader and his guard, but they proved viciously effective with their sharp orge hooks, and although he inflicted some damage on Jargrath he soon succumbed to half a dozen brutal cuts and fell at the ogres' feet. The Black Arrow Vale Temros stepped into the gap with his axes, but two terrible blows from the ogres killed him.

Realising Jargrath was the greatest threat, Tiberiu chanted and gestured, and moments later the enormous ogre collapsed in gales of laughter and giggles. Aurora healed her companions, including Reolan, but she could do nothing for Vale. The party were able to slay Jargrath's guard quickly and surrounded the ogre leader as he recovered his wits, raining blows on him.

Though the ogres had damaged much of the furniture and treasures of the upper floor, the party did manage to recover three intact maps from a small room behind the tribunal, and uncovered a cache of love poems, and a pair of Boots of the Mire and a locket containing fine blonde hair from a hidden compartment in the commander's wine cabinet. The love poems are addressed to someone named Myriana, who "graces Whitewillow", and Reolan recognised the hair as that of a nymph. No one in the party has heard of Whitewillow.

Jakardros asked Tiberiu and Papoy where they'd left Kaven Windstrike. After they told him, he swept up one of Vale's axes and strode off, grim faced. Tiberiu attampted to dissuade him from executing Kaven, but Jakardros ignored him, and his arguments found no support among his companions. Jakardros dragged the sobbing traitor into the fort's rainswept courtyard and cut off his head with Vale's axe.

With the ogres defeated, the party set to help Jakardros - now the last remaining Black Arrow - get rid of the bodies and cremate Vale's remains according to Black Arrows custom. He announced his intention to rebuild the unit, no matter how long it took. Ikari and Shalelu immediately offered their services, becoming the first two recruits. As the party gathered their belongings, Jakardros handed Ikari a list of goods and a pouch of coins and told him his first mission was to go with them to fetch supplies from Turtleback Ferry.

On their way back to the small town, the party noticed the Skull River was now in spate, its waters rough and rising. Shortly after they reached Turtleback Ferry they heard a load roaring sound and an enormous wave, some 10 or 15 feet high, swept down the river, flooding half the town. Residents fled the waters, shouting that the Storval Dam must have burst. The party heard schildren screaming, and saw the town schoolteacher and some of her charges in one of the turtleshell ferries, now wedged against the side of the general store and hammered by raging waters that threatened to overturn it. Ikari sent his dog, Hikaru, to help Tessera carry a rope to the teacher, while Reolan assumed his giant octopus form to hold the ferry stable. Unbenown to them, a large snake, a night belly boa, was also caught in the floods and wedged beneath the turtle shell.

After rescuing the teacher and children, the party noticed a huge log being swept downriver towards the town, but just before hitting land it dived below the surface in exactly the way a log wouldn't. As they tried to understand that it re-emerged - not a log, but a massive fanged head atop a long neck surged high above the church several hundred feet from them and slammed down into it. Townsfolk screamed that Black Magga had risen. The party hadn't heard of the creature, but clambered aboard the turtleshell ferry while Reolan's shifted his octopus body into that of as giant squid, grasped the shell in his tentacles, and jetted towards the church at high speed.

The massive head turned towards them and breathed a cloud of dark smoke that left most of them unable to think properly. Those still clear-headed attacked the creature, but their blows seemed to have little or no effect. Beneath the water, Reolan could see its body ended in a cloud of tentacles. As the party tried to pull themselves together, it breathed the dark clouds again, then sank beneath the waves into the waters of Claybottom Lake as the floodwaters receded.

Not one to miss an opportunity, Papoy quickly convinced the terrified townsfolk that the creature - an old legend in these parts, they later learnt, said to dwell in the dark waters of the Storval Deep - had fled from the party.

Mayor Shreed - who had been trapped inside his church - soon heard word of the party's success in driving off Black Magga, and offered them 2,000 gp to investigate what had happened at the Storval Dam to cause the flood - as far as the town can tell, the dam has not burst as they initially feared, or the floodwaters would not have receded. But never before has the ancient Thassilonian dam let a flood like this through either. Townsfolk warn the dam is the home of a tribe of trolls, the Skull Takers.​

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